I'm guessing they just haven't thought about how much a camera on their door tells others about them. How often they come and go, what they wear, who they are with, how often they order food, the age/race/sex of every person living there, etc. It's a massive look at their lives just as much as a camera in their living room would be.
> How often they come and go, what they wear, who they are with, how often they order food, the age/race/sex of every person living there, etc. It's a massive look at their lives just as much as a camera in their living room would be.
What's the downside of that? Is it worse than using a phone with lots of Google software on it?
What's the downside to having a amazon camera in your bathroom or bedroom recording what you do? If you don't care at all about your privacy it doesn't matter. If you are concerned with the massive surveillance and data collection amazon and google does it would make sense to try and limit the amount of data you hand over to them.
The idea that simply owning a cell phone invalidates any effort or incentive to try to keep the personal details of your life from any company ever is deeply flawed.
We all make trade-offs and must decide for ourselves what amount of data we're comfortable handing over to companies who profit from surveillance capitalism. Personally, I can install a camera without giving amazon data about me. I can't get a cell phone that doesn't leak information to google or apple (although I can try to limit what I use my cell phone for and what data those devices leak)
I get that it means a loss of privacy but I'm asking what the downside of that is. Amazon and Google know lots about me and it doesn't feel like it's obviously bad. If I had a magic wand and could erase my data from those companies today how would my life be better tomorrow?
It's true that it is hard to see the harm constant surveillance causes. The impacts it has on your life are so indirect that it's often impossible to trace, or to even know that it's happened.
The data companies collect from you is sold to others who collect it and sell it in turn. Dossiers are constructed about you as an individual listing your specific traits, activities, political leanings, etc. You can't see what these companies have decided about you, how accurate it is, who has access to your data, how they are using it, how (or if) they are securing it.
Sometimes when it comes back to bite you in the ass you'll know. your data will be leaked to the public internet, or you'll be a victim of identify theft.
Other times, your life will be impacted but you won't know why. Maybe you don't get called back for an interview at a job you wanted, but you don't know it was because they didn't like something saw in a report from a data broker (you bought too much alcohol for example). Maybe your insurance rates go up next year, but you won't know it's because of how often you eat out. Maybe you can't get a table at the restaurant you wanted to eat at, or maybe you're paying $10 more for a product you buy online than your neighbor, maybe you just wait on a hold a little longer than others when you call customer service, but you won't know it's because you weren't rated highly enough on your secret "consumer score".
The way the data companies collect can be used against you are myriad and subtle, but it's being done all the time, it's probably already impacted you. You just aren't allowed to know it.
It's an -ism a little like sexism, racism, ageism and disability discrimination. There will be countless instances that will be hard to prove the loss - as you don't have transparency of what the other side is thinking/saying.
Whether it's some dubious data from suspect source, or it's your gender, you might find some opportunities more difficult, premiums more expensive, interviews not bringing job offer. When it's just one isolated, it proves little, but in aggregate... We already know many of these data models are very wrong. When Amazon recommend products for me, they do so terribly. When Google and Facebook famously opened up their respective "what we know about you" pages a few years back, they were - for most in our office - dramatically and hilariously wrong. Often getting every key point wrong like gender, age group, and 9 of 10 interests. AI models are often reported to have gained or inbuilt bias and racism.
It doesn't feel obviously bad, but in the cargo cult of targeted advertising, they've demonstrated they're unfit for purpose. Yet the vast data stores influence all our lives daily -- we really need an audit to identify all those micro impacts and data derived discrimination, as it's undermining any belief in a rational basis and a fair chance in society.
It seems when I read arguments like this it's always about what I lose. For every job that I lose somebody else wins perhaps also because of data gleaned from surveillance. It isn't necessarily negative.
The insurance argument is pretty persuasive though. Effective insurance requires a big pool. For the same reason that ultra-precise categorization for insurance ruins insurance, ultra-precise targeting of individuals ruins advertising if we want ad-supported platforms.
Thing is, I want a level playing field whether applying for jobs, insurance, health, you name it. A hidden bias is still a bias, and particularly hidden as so much machine processing and AI is a black box unknown even to the creators -- it just spits out (hopefully) helpful results.
I don't want a chilling effect on the next generation such that every party or moment of drunkenness can be held against them in job search. Every teen has moments of idiocy -- mine thankfully were not in the age of constant surveillance, and there wasn't a smart phone or CCTV in sight. Not much freedom to grow in a world where every worst moment goes viral, or gets you on one of the "next door" neighbourhood snooping apps. Where hanging around with friends on a street corner has old folks flagging suspicious behaviour. Give us all room to breathe. Interfere via authorities when you have genuine reason to suspect. No, I don't much like where we're headed and preferred the proposition before.
Totally agree on regulation, but it seems to be coming far too slowly -- globally.
McCarthyism 2.0 is going to be a bloodbath. Forget about "six lines written by an honest man" they'll have gigabytes of data in which to find something to hang you for.
